Paul Richards

Paul David Richards was born in San Francisco, California in 1944 to working class parents, grew up in Oakland across the Bay. He attended Verde Valley School in Sedona Arizona where he rode horses and visited Mexico and the Indian reservations of the area. Entering the University of California in Berkeley in 1961, he became immersed in the student civil rights and peace movements, spent two month in jail for protesting racist hiring practices of bay area businesses, resisted the draft and opposed the war in Vietnam. He fled to Ghana, West Africa, briefly in 1966 to avoid the draft, returning after two months to face the jail sentences for past sit-in arrests. He flew from Paris and landed in San Francisco County Jail. Soon after, he moved to Madison Wisconsin, 1967-1971, where he earned a PhD in economic history specializing in labor history. Within a short time he left teaching to become a carpenter and spent 30 years in the building trades. His father, Harvey Richards, handed him his 22 films and thousands of still photos in 1987 at the end of Harvey's 30 year career as a photographer. Paul compiled some of his father's photos in a book, Critical Focus, and established Estuary Press to publish it and to license and archive the photo collection. Upon retiring from construction in 2011, he began collaboration with his wife, Nina Serrano, as an independent publisher at Estuary Press. He published Heart Suite, a trilogy of poetry books collecting Nina's poetry written from 1969 to 2012. He created website for Estuary Press, estuarypress.com, for Nina, ninaserrano.com and for the photo collection, The Harvey Richards Media Archive, hrmediaarchive.estuarypress.com. He also created a YouTube channel for video previews of Harvey Richards' films and began creating videos for Nina and himself. Estuary Press continues to publish books and videos by Nina Serrano and Paul Richards, including the Nicaraguan Program of Economic Reactivation for the Benefit of the People, 1980, which they translated in 1982, and their play, The Story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg which they wrote with Judith Binder in 1976. The play has just completed two 21st century productions, one in Texas and the other in Toronto Canada. He also published Refusenik, Nine Poems, by Paul Richards. Interest in the photo archive continues to grow as the Archive is now creating high definition digital versions of all of the films by Harvey Richards. Estuary Press is dedicated to Peace, Justice and a Healthy Planet. The Harvey Richards Media Archive is built around the idea that Knowing Our History is the First Step in Changing Our World. Nina Serrano continues writing poetry, producing radio programs for KPFA and a monthly series called "Literary Dialogs with Nina Serrano" produced by Estuary Press. Paul Richards has two children by his first wife, Susan Alland, and is the grandfather of five beautiful growing grand children.